The most common way of connecting pipes or tubing sections, collectively, “means for conveying fluids,” is with mechanical fittings, welding and friction welding. Fittings are particularly relied upon to connect sections of multilayer pipes which are used for industrial applications, including for example oilfield uses. Polyolefins are currently used in producing a wide range of pipes having a wide range of diameters. In the larger diameter pipes (typically, greater than or equal to 25 mm outside diameter), the cost for the fittings and the equipment to fix the fittings prevent the use of multilayer pipes system from being economically competitive.
For monolithic pipe systems of non-crosslinked materials, welding fittings are typically used. The challenge for multilayer pipe is that it is necessary to weld the fitting inside and outside to the pipe surface. Currently, the most commonly used process to make such welds is heat transfer by induction or infrared heating. Unfortunately these technologies rely and depend on a perfect heat transfer throughout the entire structure and a steel layer in the structure. In many instances such structures contain actual heat barrier materials. Moreover, the polymers used in multilayer pipes typically have very poor heat transfer capability. The heating time needed to reach temperatures sufficient to form an acceptable weld is dependent upon the thickness of the pipe and/or fitting as well as the diameter of the pipe. Such heating times may range from about 15 minutes up to over one hour. In addition, the connection of pipes or tubing sections made of different materials frequently leak due to different coefficients of expansion of the different materials.
A fast and reliable connector and process of connecting two or more means for conveying fluids would be beneficial in those industries using such means.